/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>16055044
>go through several small blocks like that a week eating it in bed

>>15899885
I hope youre ready

>>15824694
eat the cheese

found it

>>15057496
Just have some cheese.

>>15040593
A few blocks of American cheese makes for a good snack.

>>14630098
t.

>>13659769
t.

>eat the entire block of cheese

>>13259668
Is this you

The United States' dairy surplus has reached a record high, rounding out at 1.4 billion pounds of cheese. Reports attempting to quantify this astonishing amount have deferred to metrics like "enough to wrap around the U.S. Capitol." Suffice to say, nobody's suggesting we could consume it all.
The nation eating this much cheese is not only mind-boggling: It's growing less and less likely.

The excess is turned into cheese for storage and longevity (and the enjoyment of delicious cheese products). At the same time, government subsidies have continued to support dairy production, buying up surplus to keep prices steady. That leaves us with more cheese than anyone, even the experts, knows what to do with.

Americans can only eat so much cheese (350 pounds a year, according to USDA data). But while marketing surplus directly to consumers has its limits, company partnerships have had greater success.

In 2016, farmers poured out tens of millions of gallons of excess milk onto fields and into pools of manure, the Wall Street Journal reported. And the buyouts continue: That same year, the USDA announced a new plan to purchase $20 million of cheddar cheese to deal with the then-record surplus, "while assisting food banks and other food assistance recipients"—the latest of many bailouts for the industry.

All the Taco Bells in the nation cannot solve the record-breaking surplus. In recent years, producers have turned their focus to foreign markets, in the hopes that the government can pass this glut onto other countries. But as Novakovic points out, the demand worldwide is not for processed American cheese. It's for the "specialty, European-style" variety (and perhaps, the occasional Quesalupa).

>>11568459

>>8650954